Putting Design at the Heart of Business, Government and Society: New
Accenture Report Highlights the Rising Role of Design in 2016

From Disappearing Apps to Micromoments, Trends 2016 Takes a
Provocative Look at 10 Digital Developments Expected to Disrupt
Organizations in the Year Ahead, According to Fjord, Design and
Innovation from Accenture Interactive

December 14, 2015 09:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time

NEW YORK--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Amidst the rapid pace of innovation and changing consumer expectations,
Accenture (NYSE:ACN) has released Fjord Trends 2016, its ninth
annual report examining the most significant emergent digital trends
expected to transform design, organizations and society in the year
ahead.

“Our clients are trying hard to
move on to design doing, and it’s a tough hurdle to overcome. Everything
is becoming smaller, faster, and flatter, requiring organizations to
quickly pivot, to flex their technology and to evolve their approach to
design.”

Underpinning these trends is the continued drive toward constantly
changing Living
Services, dynamically responding to user requirements and context in
real time. The report also notes an acceleration of services moving
toward faster delivery in smaller chunks of activity and content,
enabled by APIs and platforms. And the trends aren’t confined to
technology alone: there’s an urge to design for social change, which is
a critical mindset shift that’s occurring at many organizations. These
meta themes will present an array of design challenges and opportunities
that the most successful organizations may adapt to, says the report.

“We’re hearing a lot of excited talk in the market about design
thinking,” said Mark
Curtis, chief client officer, Fjord. “Our clients are trying hard to
move on to design doing, and it’s a tough hurdle to overcome. Everything
is becoming smaller, faster, and flatter, requiring organizations to
quickly pivot, to flex their technology and to evolve their approach to
design.”

Watch. It Listens. Today, many of us use devices that encourage
us to run farther or eat better. Whether wearables or nearables, the
latest crop of devices now listen and respond. Whether it’s literally
listening to voice commands or to the streams of data we create, they
are learning from users and responding in real-time through
intent-driven, increasingly effortless, “micromoments.”

Service with Manners. With the surge of big data comes
extraordinary responsibility. The most successful organizations
appreciate that digital trust must be earned. “Privacy by design” is
being embraced at companies like Microsoft that are embedding privacy
standards into technology and product design from the start.

B2We. Liquid expectations are spilling over into our work
lives, as workers expect the same best-in-class consumer experiences
to converge with the workplace. A new emphasis on employee experience
(EX) design is reimagining workplace processes, structure and culture.

Disappearing apps. The glut of single-use apps in our daily
lives will disappear into platforms as they become “atomized,” or
super distributed, across platforms and third-party services. The next
wave may not even require human interaction to activate.

The Flattening of Privilege. Digital experiences have
democratized luxury and elevated our standard of living -- bringing
luxury services like personal chauffeurs (like Lyft) and virtual
assistants (like Facebook M) to the masses.

Approachable Government Design. Governments are rethinking the
citizen experience from a one-size-fits-all approach to finely-tuned
services tailored to individual needs. Both the U.S. and U.K.’s
digital government departments have even published meticulous design
style guides.

Healthy is the New Wealthy. Self-monitoring is no longer the
domain of a small, tech-savvy customer segment. Newly empowered
consumers are embracing health tech to measure their wellness. Even
insurers like Kaiser Permanente and Aetna are opening up their
platforms to third parties to enable the building of Quantified Self
services on top of their data connecting third-party wearables, apps
and services.

Virtual Reality’s (VR) Dreams Come True. No longer a futuristic
fantasy, VR will make its mainstream debut in 2016 with the first
consumer versions of Sony, Oculus, and Samsung products expected to
hit the market. Expect designers to think beyond gaming and put VR to
novel use in everything from scientific studies and virtual tourism,
to immersive learning.

Taking Things off the Thinking List. With rapid speed of
innovation comes a never-ending cycle of decisions and choices.
Services that can anticipate needs by suggesting options or automating
low-maintenance decisions, such as Google Now, can be a welcome part
of consumers’ lives.

Design from Within. Corporations are embracing design thinking
to catalyze change for their customers and employees. By taking a
human-centered approach, these companies are using design as an agent
for problem solving across the entire organization; but it’s an
emphasis on design doing that will bring the promise to life.

“As the digitization of everything alters what we think of as a service
and the physical world becomes more connected, organizations will need
to understand these new battlegrounds to adapt and convert change into
opportunities,” said Brian Whipple, senior managing director, Accenture
Interactive. “Our Trends reports aims to provoke, inform and
inspire but, above all, to provide actionable insights into designing
for the rapidly evolving world of experience.”

Trends 2016 draws upon the collective thinking of Fjord’s 750+
designers and developers around the world, based on first-hand
observations, third-party research and client work. For the full report,
visit trends.fjordnet.com
or share your comments on Slideshare.

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a
broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital,
technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and
specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business
functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network –
Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help
clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their
stakeholders. With more than 358,000 people serving clients in more than
120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world
works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

Fjord,
part of Accenture
Interactive, is a design and innovation consultancy that reimagines
people’s relationships with the digital and physical world around them.
We use the power of design to create services people love. By combining
a human-centered approach with robust methodology, we work with some of
the world’s leading businesses to make complex systems simple and
elegant. Founded in 2001, Fjord has a diverse team of 750+ design and
innovation experts in 19 studios around the world, including Atlanta,
Austin, Berlin, Chicago, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Los
Angeles, Madrid, Milan, New York, Paris, San Francisco, São Paulo,
Seattle, Stockholm, Sydney, and Toronto. For more information visit https://www.fjordnet.com
or follow us on Twitter @fjord.